Page 84 of Our Hearts Knew Better

Levi can fight for myfather, the man who made me feel so alone and ashamed to be myself, but he couldn’t fight for me.

He’s even closer now, leaning toward me, a plea back in his gaze, and that cruelly comforting jerk in his jaw. His hands lift the slightest bit to reach for me, instead doing so with more of his words, words that put a punch in my own stomach, a blow of guilt and shame and something else I can’t describe. But it makes me almost madder.

“I know how this is gonna sound, but I promise you, I helped him for you. You told me once how much you wished he’d change. He wants the chance to turn things around, Summer, and I trust that he means it.”

I suck in a breath at the memory of that wish, the one thing I’d ever wanted that I believed for that second I could have.

Besides the man right here in front of me.

ButFloyd Kinnisonwould never. Every time I reached out over the years and he didn’t reach back. . .

“Well, I don’t trust you,” I tell Levi, a lie, and the quick edit is another thing out of my control. “I don’t trust that you know him like you think you do. Not like I do.” I’m shaking my head, tryingto calm down my emotions, and Levi’s nodding, agreeing with me, but not done arguing with me.

“If I’m wrong,” he starts, a determined bend in his brows, “and he hurts you all over again, fuck him. I’ll leave him alone. And I’ll remove myself from your life too,” he adds with some hesitation, this promise tight in his throat, like doing so would hurt him, too, but also with a certainty that he’s right about my father and won’t have to feel that pain.

But my heart still thuds with it, a blending pain, from too many people and too many things, deep in my sternum, my father’s churning the hardest for the first time in a long time, because of Levi, that wound again reopening.

“I can’t go back in that house alone,” I admit to him, a flinch from the sting, my teeth clenching again to shut this all off. But I’m still in defensive mode, the world around me hazing as I spill, “And I hate myself for it.”

My eyes squeeze closed in protest of myself, to black out the image of me standing outside my father’s house earlier this week, behind the safety of a bush, and I couldn’t go in. “I’m not weak anymore—”

“It’s not weak, Summer,” Levi rushes to assure me, breaking through what was starting to become one of my chants, his familiar defense for me in more of his determination, and a hint of his own madness that snaps my eyes open to his. “You were never weak.”

My knees become more unsteady the longer he holds my gaze, as unwavering as his hold on my heart, almost hypnotizing me into doing something really wrong—or finally right?

“I am weak,” I say, the strength I’ve let slip nowhere in my voice. “But you’re not.”

The lilting sadness in me, the blue that’s from him, and the breathless disappointment showing itself, cracks his seeming steadiness at what I mean.I’m weak foryou, bastard.

His own breathing thins, as if now realizing the amount of space he’s closed between us.

The smallest gasp parts my already parted lips more, like they’re waiting for the seal of his, at seeing the spark again, the anguish, telling me maybe he is weak for me too.

Water hits my face. One droplet. Then another.

Levi and I blink and look up at the same time, as more droplets fall, fatter, with less seconds between them.

It’s a random night storm in Rosalee Bay. And we’re about to be drenched.

“Shit,” hisses from my mouth, and when I look back at Levi, he’s halfway through taking his shirt off.

“You—” I stammer over words as droplets slide over my arms. “Don’t—”

But he already does, standing half-naked and thrusting his shirt at me.

“I don’t need to see your chest, Levi,” I snap out, when it was on my tongue to say I don’t needhis shirt, I’ll be fine, but now I’m growing weaker at the sight of that gorgeously defined chest as it gets damper by the second.

“I saw yours,” he rushes out, and another layer of sweat breaks over my skin. “Now use my shirt before I drop my shorts and make us even,” he threatens, and it’s so sudden, the rain coming on much stronger, with a loud rumble of thunder, that I snatch the dark fabric. “This way.” He spins around and starts running, and I follow, holding his shirt over my head.

It’s good material. It’ll keep me from gettingtoosoaked, as long as wherever we’re going is close by.

Our feet are fast, making little splashes from the water that’s already collecting in little puddles, and the whole time I’m following him, half blind and battered by rain, I’m thinking,yes, let’s run, run, run!

You Stole My House

Summer

It’s a downpour, both of us soaked, my clothes and what’s left of his sticking to our bodies, when we finally slow down at a destination.

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